ACT Dateline

Lebanon 14/06

Fear and anxiety rise again following political assassination

By Toya Richards Hill, ACT International

Beirut, Lebanon, November 22, 2006 - The normally jammed-packed streets of Beirut during rush hour were even more frantic yesterday a residents scrambled immediately following the news that Christian politician Pierre Gemayel had been brutally gunned down in the streets of a Beirut suburb.

Horns blared, sirens screeched, and a thick air of apprehension wafted through the streets as people struggled with the news. For a while, many mobile phones were inoperable as scads of people tried to place calls at once.

The 34-year-old's murder was especially jarring for some in the diverse Christian community here, and reaction was a mixture of anger, disbelief and fear that the assassination will lead to more violence.

"We have had enough!" said Suad Hajj Nassif, director of the Inter-Church Network for Development and Relief (ICNDR), the arm of the Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) that carries out humanitarian relief in Lebanon. A member of the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, MECC is an ecumenical body that represents several Christian denominations.

"The first thing that comes to people's mind is the war," Nassif said, referring to this summer's conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. "We don't want to live in tensions and in worries all the time."

Gemayel, who was the industry minister in Lebanon's cabinet and a Maronite Catholic, was shot at point-blank range. He was a supporter of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority, and his killing only heightens political tensions that were already near the boiling point.

Pro-Syrian factions led by Hezbollah have been in a power struggle to gain more authority in Lebanon's government, while at the same time Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government has backed a United Nations international tribunal looking into the alleged Syrian participation in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

All of that comes in the wake of a 34-day conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in July and August, a clash that left South Lebanon's infrastructure, in particular, crippled and the whole country emotionally traumatized.

The expectation is "that this will bring something else, something bad, because people will react to this," said Nassif, whose staff has been actively responding to the aftermath of the Israeli-Hezbollah crisis. "We are afraid that this will lead to internal problems."

"Now, the situation is critical," she said.

Mary Mikhael, president of the Near East School of Theology, located in Beirut, is equally as concerned.

"Of course, whenever somebody dies like this it is a loss for the Christian community and for the country," she said. "The sense of loss is there, but also the sense of fear and anxiety."

"Every time something happens, we think this is the last time, and then it is repeated again."

"It is very frustrating and very sad," said Mikhael, whose school is an interdenominational institution within the Protestant community.

In a statement shortly after the assassination, Gemayel's father, former Lebanese president Amine Gemayel, called for a night of prayer to think and reflect about what has happened.

He also called for calm, saying, "We don't want reactions, we don't want vengeance."

(ends)

Toya Richards Hill is a reporter for Presbyterian News Service who has been seconded to the ACT team working in Beirut, Lebanon, by Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (Presbyterian Church [USA]), a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT) International.

ACT is a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies worldwide. The ACT Coordinating Office is based with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Switzerland.

Delicio.us  |   Digg  |   NewsVine  |   Reddit